HIST 169: African American Women's History

Jerma Jackson

This course explores the experiences of African American women from the mid-nineteenth century through the emergence of a black feminist movement in the eighties. We will consider these experiences within the context of U.S. history paying particular attention to three broad themes: labor - both within and outside home and community, political activism, and culture. What kinds of labor have black women undertaken to support themselves, their families, and their communities? When and how have African American women turned to political activism to remedy the economic and social injustices they and their communities faced? How have black women, in the face of these injustices along with other forms of exploitation, used culture to make sense of their everyday lives? The answers to these questions will vary depending on time, space as well as the particular women in question. This course calls attention to the diverse experiences of African American women. The outlooks of slave women, for example, significantly differed from the preoccupations of free women during the ante-bellum period. Yet in spite of these differences, both groups of women shared common experiences. As we shall see, these connections could sometimes serve as sources of conflict.

Exploring these themes and questions affords us an opportunity to examine the operation of gender, race and class in African American communities and American society in general. In the process of this examination, we will look at the influence of these forces - gender and race, especially - on the lives of African American women.